John: Bachelor party or bachelorette party, to me, it sounds like I'm going to go jump off because I hope that is made into a clip. Maybe I've seen enough stuff. Just end it right there. The clip right there would be perfect. We discover through our flaws. We complete each other better than perfect. We stay through every fault. No way, I'm very impressed. We're literally in the middle of the ocean, and it hasn't normally been this rough. And the reason I can't even get in is, yeah, it's normally not this high either. And in fact, I feel like it's getting rougher by the minute, but it is sunny. It is sunny in comparison to the one we did yesterday. So, welcome back to the Better Than Perfect podcast.

Nicole: Where we, every week, and sometimes in the molds, share with you how two imperfect people helping each other grow equals a not-get-eaten-by-sharks. Okay, don't say that because we saw one earlier. One better than perfect relationship. That's right. That's right. Yeah. John wasn't even supposed to be holding on to this letter for this. He was like, "I'll just go out. I mean, I don't need to hold on. I mean, you could until you get swept out, and I have to blow the whistle." But yeah, I mean, if you don't know by now, John and I like to do crazy things. Not crazy things as then go way out there. We tried that this morning. But here's a crazy thing about it. This trick was going in this nice voice, but we did, uh, I think we talked about last week, but San Francisco two nights, House Hotel Singapore three nights at the Andas, and then uh, Thailand, Bangkok at the Waldorf Astoria. Yeah, and then here we are for five nights at the Le Meridien, and then we're gonna be at the Alila in a Beach villa. Yeah, for another four nights, then back, and then we're continuing. Yeah, we're going to circle the globe. Yeah, and we flew United Polaris on the way here to Japan.

John: Yeah, to Japan, and then to Singapore. Oh, Singapore, we flew from Japan to Singapore on Singapore Airlines, right.

Nicole: Oh, in business class. And then we're flying United, uh, Emirates all the way back. Not United, just Emirates.

John: Or is it United Emirates?

Nicole: No, I think it's Emirates. You said United Emirates. We're flying Emirates, uh, in business class to the DUI.

John: And then from DUI to Toronto.

Nicole: So, yeah. Oh no, Montreal. But the crazy thing about all that is that it was, it's about a retail value of $54,000, but which is insane, but we paid $4,000 for because of points and, yeah, the points. And honestly, it would have been even cheaper than that if you didn't have to take sea planes to get out here in the Maldives, which that, it's pretty expensive per person.

John: Yeah, if you didn't have the sea plane for like to add another $2,000 to the trip, we would have done the whole thing for $2,000.

Nicole: Right. So, but yeah, so shout out to Trevor, yes, who we actually got to meet in Thailand.

John: Yeah, we met him in person.

Nicole: Yeah, before I got sick.

John: John got violently ill. Like violently, to the point where our second full day we had in Thailand, we spent mostly inside.

Nicole: But that's okay because he was very sick, and I wouldn't have wanted to drag you through the streets of Thailand like that. I wouldn't want somebody to drag me through the streets of Thailand like that. But we did go to a scalp salon that day, later in the evening, and that was really cool. And you can definitely tell the difference. But yeah, but Trevor, I was gonna say, shout out to him, memmethod.com.

John: Yeah, you want eight clients per month, I think.

Nicole: Very selective. If you talk to him, mention Better Than Perfect and let him know that you heard about it. But it's, but yeah, he did talk about, though, doing something that if you don't want to do the full program or he doesn't have enough spots, he has like a workshop or something similar to that, that he will be doing to help people, you know, kind of understand the points and make it work for them. Like, because we talked about it with him, and we've talked about it before in general, that it's kind of hard to believe.

John: Yeah, that's the biggest problem. It's kind of hard to believe. I mean, even now, people might be watching this and like, "He paid them to, like, right, like, I don't believe this." But you should believe it. Especially like the people who know us personally, we're going like our families, they're like, "What? They're in the Maldives?" Like, they understand that we're doing all this with points.

Nicole: Yeah, just yeah. And then, and we did our honeymoon was like a $50,000 journey for, I think, $4,000. And then we did Hawaii for a week, and we stayed at the Grand Hyatt. Well, that's when we shot the other podcast, at the Grand Hyatt. With, well, no, we shot the other podcast at the second, The Lodge. Lodge was, I mean, that place was almost $3,000. It's hard now because you're like, "What's your favorite place we stayed at?" And I'm like, "There are so many different genres." Like, when people say hotel, it's like, is this a hotel? Like, it is technically, but it's like a villa. And then when we did the one in Hawaii, it was like a house. They called it a cottage, but that is a house. But yeah, I guess we should probably get into the topics. So, yeah, I guess, what is the topic?

John: The topic could be when you're marooned on an island. I think we're gonna do, we said, when women have control in a relationship or when women have control in the dating process, and when men have control in the dating process. 'Cause it's still technically the dating process, or it should be.

Nicole: So, I guess we'll start with the women since they're first. The women, they don't realize that when they're first going on the first initial dates, I would say even potentially up to the first five dates, they have the control. 'Cause a man is going on a date, and even if he's looking for a relationship, he's also looking for something else. Like, we know what he's looking for. I don't have to say it. And I'm not saying that all women think that if they give a man what he wants within the first date, or even I would even say like three dates in, 'cause personally, I think you should wait at least three dates, ah, minimum. Okay, yeah. You know, then he'll like me 'cause I'm giving him what he wants, and this is what men want. And like, you know, maybe she's also confident in her abilities, so she's like, "Let me, you know, but it doesn't really work that way." Men tell you that's what they want. That is what they want, but if you give them what they want, it will not get you what you want. Right, because that's when you have the leverage of, right, when you have the thing that the man wants the most, and you, because women are the guardians of sex, it's like, so at that point, that's your most valuable.

John: Commodity that you have to train is your leverage. You are the one who's going to determine if sex is going to happen at a certain point in the relationship. If you give that up, you're giving up your leverage, your biggest lever. Not that you should manipulate people with sex, especially because it's too early for it to even be that. You can't manipulate somebody with sex when you're just getting to know them and you're withholding that. Women need to understand that when you use sex as manipulation, that's further into the relationship. When you're committed, that is when that happens. But when you're first getting to know somebody, you are not under any obligation to have sex with somebody.

Nicole: Yeah, it's a misconception. It's not manipulation, and maybe men view it that way and they get mad. Maybe women are like, "I don't want to do that," even if they do want to be intimate with somebody. But here's the thing that women need to understand: even if you want to be intimate with him on the first date, don't do it. Like I said, hold out to at least the third date because then by that point, you'll either want to do it more, which will make it a better experience, or you won't want to at that point, and you realize that you don't really like him for the compatibility that you guys have. A lot of women, especially if they've dated a lot and haven't had a lot of luck, might start resorting to, "Well, I just want anybody to like me." They're not saying that, but they're acting that way. So, they do try to give the man all these things that he hasn't earned yet. Just like we've done an episode about how men try to give women all these things that they haven't earned, you can't give a man something he hasn't earned, and he should earn having sex with you. That should be what he is earning.

John: Yeah, people are going to have... I mean, that's a good sound, but here's the thing, it's true. It's true, and I'll tell you why. It translates to he needs to put in the effort. He needs to show the actual courtship process. Because if he can just hook up, which is what most men want when they're on a dating app, they're looking to hook up. But he's not going to take a girl to dinner and pay for dinner just to get that, but that is what he wants. A man's not going to say no to that. But what I'm saying is that as a woman, you want to make sure that he's going to put in an effort. And if you give it up too early, you're more likely to lose him because, in order for a man to fall in love or to really want something more, he needs to get to know you more and has to put in an investment. That's what creates attachment. But if you have required minimal investment from him and he's gotten the main thing that he wanted, then why doesn't he just move on? Most of the time, he's going to. Not to say that always happens. Sometimes you have a magical connection, and everything is great. But a lot of times, women give up that leverage so easily.

Nicole: Right, and then the guy doesn't have to put in an effort because, you know, you've heard that whole saying, "Why buy the cow if I can get the milk for free?" That's kind of the idea. A guy is not going to invest time and money and energy if you're just giving it away. That's a huge thing because a lot of women will tell you, "Oh well, I went on some dates with some guy, and I really liked him. I did everything. I was so nice to him. I did all the things that he wanted me to do. I gave him everything that we talked about, that he wanted, and showed him that I'm... Why doesn't he like me?" It's because that is not what it's about. It kind of goes back to one of the episodes we did about girl game and guy game and being mysterious. It's not to be deceitful, but it's because when you do give everything right off the bat, then you are more hurt, and you do take it personally. You end up making the wrong decisions. It's sunk cost. You've already given up something so valuable to you, and now you're chasing what you've invested because you've got to get something out of it. You're trying to make that guy become the one, which a lot of women do. That's also why they end up not respecting the man because they've kind of turned him into somebody that he wasn't or assumed he was going to change. A lot of women do that, and it's a lot of pressure. "I want to have kids. I want to start a family. My biological clock is ticking." Not all women do that, and I don't think they should rush it. But as a woman, if you're still single in your 30s or mid-30s, you do kind of feel like, "Well, I want to get married. I want to have kids." You don't want to rush it, but you want to find the right person. It's a complicated situation for them to be in, but they'll have better luck if they realize that they have the power in the beginning and walk away if they need to. Definitely, like I said, wait at least till the third date. Honestly, just try not to do it on the first date. Like you said, I'm not saying that it never works out, but a man, why does he need to invest if you've given him everything that he wants? And this is coming from someone who, for a lack of a better term, taught guys, coached guys on pickup.

John: Up girls and from a bar that they just met or whatever, not even dudes, right? And bring them home and, you know, it might seem contradicting, and a lot of guys will tell you, "No, no, no, you should like don't be a prude, don't you know." But that's them tricking you. You want to filter guys like that, right?

Nicole: Exactly, unless that's what you're looking for. But in general, if you're looking for a relationship, you want to filter guys like that because when I'm coaching those guys, they're thinking, "Oh, I'm going to hook up with this girl tonight, I'm going to hook up with this girl the next night, I'm going to go to this park, this nightclub." You see what I'm saying?

John: Yeah, if they had some resistance. I'm not saying that that's going to make it. I'm just saying men act like they don't like resistance, but in the beginning, they like resistance. I was in that mode myself when we met, right?

Nicole: And you tried, and I shut it down.

John: But you can flirt, right? But I saw that you're interested, you had high standards for yourself, you're a valuable person. I had fun with you, I wanted to get to know you more, so I did end up going on more than one date. Had I just gotten my way very simply and easily, I probably still would, you know, you're amazing, I would have gotten, but it just makes it less likely, right? Because I'm like, okay, well, you know, I got what I came here for. Do I need to really know more?

Nicole: Right. So even though a lot of people will tell you otherwise, this is the truth. This is the real thing. And guys will get mad. They'll say, "Oh, well, she makes me wait. She makes the blue-pilled simp beta guy wait, but she gives it up for Chad on the first night. She runs over to Chad's house from Tinder stuff." And there might be some truth to that, but that doesn't mean that's smart. That's why she doesn't get Chad. That's why she doesn't get the guy, potentially. You should make them all wait.

John: Yeah, no, you're not wrong. And there was another point that I need to dig into my brain for. I mean, I lost it, but maybe it'll come back. This is why people don't shoot podcasts in the water. It's hard to focus; it's distracting.

Nicole: I got water in my eye, and now I lost all my thoughts. But no, like, that's why women should have boundaries in the beginning. Oh, it just came to me. But women will be like, "But if I don't sleep with him, he won't like me." And they're like, "But if I don't do this, he won't like me." That is correct, and that should give you the answer on what you should do with a man like that. If you feel like, "If I don't do this for this man, sex or not, whatever it is, you know, that seems like being used for something," that is your answer. That is not the guy for you. You cannot make him happy by giving him sex if he's using it as a "you have to do this for me to make me happy" sort of thing. That is the type of guy you run away from. Women need to view dating more as a way to gather research. I'm not saying that if you go on a good date, don't keep going on dates with that guy. You're just getting research. But if you view dating as a way to go and meet new people and learn new things about what you like and don't like, then you'll enjoy dating more. You'll put off an aura where people will be more attracted to you. It'll be easier to get dates, and you'll have better chances at finding the person you're supposed to be with. And when you run into somebody that you're not compatible with or you don't want to continue dating, just be respectful and be like, "Hey, I just don't think that we're a good fit. I appreciate the time that we had, but I think it's best we see other people." And a guy might get mad at that. You can't people please and be like trying not to make some guy upset, but have the boundaries in the beginning, and then that also saves you a lot of time going on dates with the wrong people. And also, too, if you wait till the three dates to be intimate, now you're not also attached physically in that way that women do. You know, give part of ourselves to men when we are intimate with them, that you haven't given somebody that ended up not being the one for you, that part of you. And you can save that experience for someone else. And I'm not saying that women don't have needs and they don't want to have sex, and they don't get the whole sex joy industry.

John: Right, exactly. And to be honest, women already know that, you know, a lot of men don't know what they're doing, but a lot of men do know what they're doing. But it's not worth risking it on someone that you're not sure of. So at least by date three, that's why I say date three is a minimum. You're at least a little bit sure of how you feel about this person, if you want to continue dating them, if it's worth going to that point with them. But I think if women understand that they have the power right off the bat from the initial dates, they can make better decisions for themselves and for the relationship as a whole if it gets to that point. Because, like you said, the man will also respect you for not giving him what he wants. It seems like it doesn't make sense. Men feel like women don't make sense, and women feel like men don't make sense. But if you realize that, then you actually realize how to make sense of it. Like I just said, it sounded like a whole puzzle, but what I'm trying to say is, men tell you one thing, that they want a woman that does everything that they say. But if you act like that from the very beginning when you're first dating him, he's not interested in you. You have to have a little bit of mystery, you have to have boundaries, you have to have respect for yourself. Because a man, yes, men want respect for themselves in a relationship, but they also want to respect the woman that they're with.

Nicole: Exactly. And you do that by not sleeping with them and by having standards for yourself. Look, you have a kid. Your kid wants a bicycle, okay? So you're like, "Okay, here's a bicycle." The kid, what did he do with that bicycle? He rides it one time, maybe, and then doesn't take care of it, leaves it out in the rain, it rusts. Because like, "I want a bicycle." You're like, "Okay, well, you have to do some chores, you have to save up for the bicycle. You don't just give them the bicycle; you make them earn the bicycle." Now the kid

John: Appreciates the bice, right? What I'm saying is, don't just give people free rides.

Nicole: I see what you did there. But no, it is true. It's leverage. You have to use it when you have it. That power, and it's not necessarily true that if you give someone what they want, that doesn't mean they're going to like you more. People get that confused. Like in our circumstance, I was confused. I was like, "What's going on here?" I texted you, and you literally said that you actually liked me because I felt like you liked me. But it was because I was so used to just, okay, she's just going to sleep with me.

John: Right. But see, women, you have to always keep them guessing. You have to flirt with them. I'm not saying don't flirt with them, don't be cute. Like we mentioned before, give them a little something, like shake your booty or something. Give him a little something, but don't give him the whole thing. Don't give him the whole package. Tease him a little bit with that because that's what he wants.

Nicole: Yeah, it's like when you go fishing. We're here in the water, right? You go fishing, you throw your line out there, you reel it in slowly. It's luring. You're luring him in. If you just jerk it in really fast, you're not going to catch the fish. And people are like, "I don't want to play games." And it's like, no, you do have to play games, sorry. It's not manipulation, but you do have to play some kind of game. It's trickling the information because why are you exhausted? Because they give all the information, they do all the things right off the bat, and they're like, "I'm exhausted. I don't want to go on dates anymore." It's exhausting, yeah, because you gave them everything on the very first date. That is exhausting. Girl game, this is what it is, right? Which is hard to understand, but maybe, hopefully, I made it a little bit more understandable. But if you have questions about girl game, you can ask us.

John: Yeah, we do a full episode. Nicole can give you all the girl game there.

Nicole: I'll make you do some skits. I'm just kidding. Now, the guy part, right? So, after women have leverage in the very beginning, the sex is the leverage. Girls are the guardians of sex; guys are the guardians of commitment. So, this is where I see so many guys making the mistake of just giving this up too easily. Not to say that you should have a fear of commitment, not commit. You should do that when you find the right girl. However, before you commit, at the point where, and never ask for commitment as a guy. That would be like a woman asking for sex. If you go on a date with a girl, and she's like, "Can we have sex tonight?" As a guy, you're like, "Are you a cop?" You'll still do it, but you won't like it. You can't do that. You have to wait for the guy to try. So, the same thing if you're a guy, and you ask a girl, if you're like, "Can we be boyfriend-girlfriend?" or "Where are we going with this?" She's going to run away. Most of the time, so it's not good. But when the girl does come and ask for it because she likes you, you're having a good time, right? At that point, she's giving up her leverage, the sex part. Now, she wants something, the thing that you're still holding on to, which is commitment. And guys, you have to bring it out to that point. She has to be into you enough. That means you have to court her enough, charm her enough, have enough game that she wants to be exclusive with you, she wants to lock you down. Now, she's invested. At that point, this is where it's crucial that you now have basically the two conversations we talked about in this podcast. On the second episode, we talked about the six rules of relationship, however you want to define that. But I'll go through them briefly. It's essentially, this is where you have the conversation and say, "Look, if we're going to be in a committed relationship, there are some things that I think are important in order to protect the relationship. I want to share my location with you, and I'd like you to share your location with me. Out of respect for you, I'm not going to talk to girls like I had friends over, girls. I'm not talking to them just on a casual basis. If someone says something, whatever, but I'll show you any text that any girls send me. And I expect the same. You can have access to my phone, and I want access to your phone." Of course, all the things, right? We won't go through the entire list, but you can watch the second episode if you want to know all of that. So, you need to have that conversation. And again, this is the whole thing. A lot of guys are like, "Oh, she's not going to go for that," or "She's going to be like, 'Oh, you're controlling or insecure.'" We've addressed this a lot, but this is the Leonardo DiCaprio rule. If Leonardo DiCaprio said, "I want to turn on the locations on our phone, and I'm not going to talk to any other girls besides you, and have girlfriends, you know, whatever, and all these things, and I'm going to give you access to my phone and my email, and I want you to do the same," most girls are going to say yes. Yes, yeah, yes, Leo, right? They're going to be excited about that. If she's not excited about it with you, that might be time to dump her. It might be time to stop dating her. She doesn't value you, or you haven't proven yourself to be that trustworthy guy that she thinks is high enough value. So, that's something to consider, the Leo rule. And then the second thing that you need to do with leverage is you need to have the captain of the ship talk, which again, I think we talked about it in one of those episodes. I think it was like one of the second ones, maybe. Yeah, it might have been. But it's basically where you're saying, "Look, if we're going to be in this relationship, I'm going to be the captain of the ship. I don't have a co-pilot, in a sense. I am the one who is the captain. I'm a good captain. I go down with the ship. I am responsible for the crew on the ship. I put the crew first."

John: You know what I mean. I put everyone else first, then myself, and I will do a great job of leading you, but you do have to trust me. I'm always going to be the captain of the ship. And again, you can, you know, I'm giving a very short version of it. You should give a more detailed talk about this, but essentially, you just have to, however you want to do it. You don't have to do the ship thing if you don't want to. I think it's good, but you just have to make it clear, and she has to be on board with you being the leader in the relationship and her trusting you enough to lead. Right? And if that's not the case, again, maybe it's not time for a committed relationship yet, or maybe it's time to move on. But if you have a woman who has agreed to those six things and has agreed to the captain of the ship talk, and now you're going to commit to a relationship with her, guys, you're not worrying about her cheating on you. You're not worried that she's going to divorce you and take your stuff. Like, she's already valued you.

John: And showed you that she has enough commitment and trust for you as a man that she's willing to let you lead, and she's a keeper. So, and this is where you have that leverage. If you try to have this conversation later in the relationship after you've already given her commitment, which is what she wanted, just like a woman giving up sex too early, you don't have as much leverage. You should still have the conversation, right? But now she's just going to say, well, you didn't say this earlier. You know, like, say, see you later. I want to do this. This isn't the deal. So that's why you have to do it then.

Nicole: Right. And I mean, I'm genuinely curious for the women who, and pay attention, everybody, these are the stipulations. If you're a woman who, like John just said, values your man, you respect him, you guys have that sort of respect, and you value each other's feelings, so you don't hang out with friends of the opposite sex and things like that, and whatnot. Where is the resistance like? What woman who values all the things that you just mentioned wouldn't want that? And I want to know what the women who don't want what you just said, why they don't want it. Right? Because, in my opinion, most women that I know personally, if their man was like, "Hey, let's not talk to other people of the opposite sex like that because it's just not very respectful to each other, and let's have each other's location so you know we can make sure that each other is safe and you know what's going on," and you know, all those things like that, like, why wouldn't a woman want that if she is with a man that she respects and values? I want to know that.

Nicole: So, if you're a woman that respects and values the man you're with, but you guys don't do those sorts of things, why don't you do it? And sometimes I'm like, is it because they've never had their trust broken before, and they just have very deep trust in each other? Which, like, I'm not saying that we don't have trust in each other, but I'm just saying that I'm just wondering what it is. Because a lot of people like to rush to, well, you don't trust your partner, and that is not the case. It's actually like, I admire you more for wanting to respect our relationship in that way. And I think that that is a way to respect our relationship because those are things that I would want on my own, and I'm not having to ask you for that. And as a woman, I feel like we're normally the ones that have to be like, hey, you want to share your location? Or hey, can you not follow girls on Instagram and like their pictures? It's normally women asking for those things. So what woman wouldn't want a man to do those things himself? And then, I mean, obviously, he would respect it in return, and I think that's understandable.

John: Yeah. And my question also would be for women that are opposed to that, again, if Leonardo DiCaprio asked you that, or whoever, fill in your hunk, whatever you want, your celebrity crush. If you're old, Brad Pitt, you know, if it's like, if you're old, Richard Gere, if you're really old. Oh God, I don't know if that's our demographic that is watching this, the guy from Superman or whatever, you know, like, whoever, or Thor, you know, whatever, you can fill in whoever you want. But if that person, if your celebrity crush, whatever, asked you, would you not be thrilled that he's not going to go out on a bachelor party to Vegas, you know what I'm saying? And would you not be willing to give that up yourself? It's like, so, and that's not for you to answer for yourself, right? To really evaluate. And then, if you are saying, you know, if you're still like, no, I still wouldn't do it, then I don't know what to tell you. But if you would for some other guy, that's your celebrity crush, and that would be okay, then you have to really evaluate one, is this actually the guy that you want to be with? Right? And two, like, do you, you know, what do you, what are you actually looking for? What are you actually valuing? You know, I would say, are you just falling into the normal sea of dysfunctional relationships, which that might cause people to be upset? But when I, and I had these myself, so I'm not being hypocritical. I had plenty of relationships before you came along and dated plenty of people that I was in the same normal, like, people acting like it's normal to live in these dysfunctional ways. Like, I would go on girls' trips when I dated somebody, or I would, you know, go out without my partner, things like that. And it didn't feel abnormal to me because society has normalized that. And it has normalized that to the point where they're like, if you don't do it like that, then you're not independent, and then you're relying on somebody, and you can never rely on somebody, you can only trust yourself, which creates fear in people. And we're not saying to be codependent in the sense of you can't do anything without the other person, but you shouldn't want to experience a lot of things in life when you are with somebody that you value so much without the other person.

John: Right. Exactly. And, you know, I don't like to bring this up too much because there's so much detail in my background that we did a whole episode on it, and maybe we can do another one. But, you know, in the relationship that I was in before I met you, had there been these things in place, I would have not been able to get away with what I, obviously. So again, not, I'm not condoning it. I'm not, you know, I'm just saying that, take it from someone who did step outside of a relationship. Right? And again, you know, there's more context to it, you know, it's definitely a wrong thing for me to do, but I'm saying it so you can understand that there would have been no way possible I.

John: Wouldn't have been able to do what I was doing had I not known your locations. If all your locations were off, I would have just had to leave. I would have just had to exit the relationship and say I'm out, I'm not doing this. Which would have been the better thing. But you're just emphasizing the point that these are important things to have, and that's how relationships should end. They should end without cheating because it just adds trauma. It's more traumatizing to be cheated on than someone breaking up with you. Initially, that hurts, but it eventually fades away, and you don't typically have trauma left from just being broken up with.

Nicole: Cheating leaves a lot behind, and it can mess somebody up for a lot longer. Every single person who's ever been cheated on, and every single person who's ever cheated, pretty much didn't think it was going to happen to them. They thought they trusted their partner; they wouldn't have been with their partner otherwise. So, when people tell me in the comments like, "Oh, I trust my partner, it's different with us," you genuinely believe it. Right, which so did every single person who has ever been cheated on. So did every single person, pretty much, who ever cheated. They also thought the same thing. You might be right, but they thought they were right, and they didn't know. So, just put the rules in place for everybody's protection, and then you're fine. It's a smart, respectful thing to do. And a man leading the relationship, whether the woman agrees with this or not, should have the common sense to know that what we're telling him is correct, and he should implement that in the relationship because he's supposed to be leading it. So, he's supposed to say these are the things that we need to be doing.

John: Right. And women, I know women get very upset, or they're scared that men can be controlling because either they've been in a relationship with a man that's controlling, or they're just fearful of that as a woman because they know what that can entail, you know, with abuse and things like that. But women need to trust their intuition. They need to trust themselves. They need to tap into that feminine part of them that is like, "Is this a good man, or is this man being controlling?" Or is he having boundaries, which there is a difference. And we've told you guys what the difference is in something, "Touch Me" episode on that. So, when the guy has the talk with you, and he's saying, "Let's do these things," and they are boundaries, they're not commands or demands, trust him. Like, trust that this is what you want because it is what you want. Don't be afraid that he's going to turn controlling. And if he ever does turn controlling because maybe he projected a boundary, but he's now acting out of commands, you have the power to walk away as well. And you know, the thing is, you can't be, as a woman, you can't be afraid forever. And I get that it's scary, and you know, a lot of women were saying in our episode where we were talking about how a woman could do everything right, and a man still leaves. They're like, "Well, this is terrifying." And I mean, it's the reality, but that shouldn't keep you from doing the things. And if a man does these things, implements these rules in the relationship, yes, he could still... You could do everything right, but if you have this, it's like having an insurance policy. He's showing you he's investing in you as well because it's not just he's not cheating; he's actively preventing cheating.

Nicole: Exactly. That's a good... You see what I'm saying? Like, that's the guy you want to keep and not call him controlling or insecure because you could lose a very good guy by calling him controlling or insecure. And then you want to go back to him, and by that point, you can't because you've burned the bridge.

John: Yeah. It's also very dangerous when a person just trusts you so much. They don't care where their partner's at or what they're doing. That feels like they don't care enough about you.

Nicole: Exactly. Well, you said it. I don't know if you said it on the podcast, but you said it best one time where if you have a parent that just trusts you, you know, when you were a kid, they let you do whatever they want. They didn't even give you any rules or anything. You don't feel loved. Like, that child wouldn't feel loved. They'd be like, "Why? Why are you letting me do everything?" Even though that's what they want, and even though a child's brain thinks they know better and that's what they want, and they're getting what they want, the reality of being human kicks in and is like, "Well, does my parent even care about me? They're just like, go ahead, you know, bye." That doesn't make somebody feel like they're invested in them or care about them.

John: Right. It's like if your partner was like, "I'm going to go jump off a cliff," and you're like, "Ah, I trust you. You're fine." Like, "I trust the world that they're going to get you." Okay, that indicates not caring. That's right. It's like, so that's what I... When people say, "I'm going to go to a bachelor party or bachelorette party," it's to me, it sounds like, "I'm going to go jump off a cliff." Because I hope that is made into a clip. Maybe... I've seen enough stuff. Just end it right there. The clip right there. But okay, I think we pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Nicole: Nailed it. Oh, well, what is our thing for the week? I mean, we talked about in the other episode that there were like a few things, but it's really just what we talked about before, that we're just personally working on things that we each need to work on.

John: Yeah, and we're just going to continue to do that.

Nicole: I think I should put these up, and then we just jump in. What do you say?

John: Okay, let's do it. A good way to end the podcast. There you go.

Nicole: I'll put them up since I'm already halfway. Whichever cameras are still rolling, we'll see. I don't think they'll blow away. Right, I'm Di.